[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 111 (Thursday, August 11, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            MOST CRIMINAL DEFENDANTS COME FROM BROKEN HOMES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lehman). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, before coming to Congress, I spent 7\1/2\ 
years as a Criminal Court Judge.
  I tried primarily the felony cases, the more serious cases.
  In that time, I suppose I went through 7,000 or 8,000 cases, because 
96 or 97 percent of the defendants pled guilty, and most had more than 
one case.
  The first day I was a judge, Gary Tullock, the Chief Probation 
Counselor for east Tennessee, told me that 98 percent of the defendants 
in felony cases came from broken homes.
  In almost all the cases I handled, I would get detailed reports about 
a defendant's background.
  Over and over, I would read ``Defendant's father left home when 
Defendant was two and never returned;'' Defendant's father left to get 
pack of cigarettes and never came back.''
  I became convinced that the greatest problem we have in this Nation 
today is the fact that so many homes are broken, and more specifically, 
that so many boys are growing up without fathers or with no male 
influence in their lives.
  A few months ago, I read a column in the Washington Times in which 
two leading criminologists had studied 11,000 felony cases.
  They reported that the single biggest factor in crime, the single 
most consistent factor was father-absent households.
  All of this is to explain why I was so very much impressed by a 
column in today's Washington Times by Mona Charen, the syndicated 
columnist and television commentator.
  I wish every American could read this column. Its message is so very, 
very important to our survival as a Nation.
  Mona Charen wrote this:

                         Remains of the Culture

       Two extremely active preschoolers keep me more or less 
     permanently behind the times on the subject of movies. But I 
     did recently see ``The Remains of the Day'' on tape.
       The movie reminds one, once again, of the essential 
     fragility of things that seem so enduring.
       Look at the social hierarchy depicted, accurately I think, 
     in that film. The code of duty, honor and responsibility that 
     was so ingrained in generations of Britons--a code that was 
     strong enough to keep the butler serving at table even while 
     his father lay dying upstairs--all of that has been swept 
     away in a heartbeat.
       One of the differences between conservatives and liberals 
     is that liberals tend to think you can tinker with social, 
     economic and political arrangements endlessly, while 
     conservatives believe that the veneer of civilization is 
     actually quite thin--and too much tampering with the 
     foundations will bring the whole thing down.
       What puts our civilization at risk? What forces are at work 
     that could make 1994 America look as antique 50 years from 
     now as the butler's world looks to us in ``The Remains of the 
     Day''?
       The forces that were unleashed by, roughly speaking, 
     Woodstock--a lamentable anniversary--have been corroding the 
     foundations of our civilization for 30 years. These years 
     have witnessed a thorough-going attack on the American 
     character. Instead of inculcating notions of honor, self-
     reliance, duty and responsibility, we have become a nation of 
     self-pitying whiners, fast with a lawsuit and slow with 
     child-support checks. We wallow in excuses for poor products 
     and lousy test scores.
       But the most worrisome aspect of the decline of character 
     is reflected in families. To an unprecedented degree, 
     American men are not performing their jobs as fathers.
       David Blankenhorn directs the Institute for American Values 
     in New York. Together with Don Eberly of the Commonwealth 
     Foundation in Pennsylvania, he has launched the ``Fatherhood 
     Initiative.''
       There is, these men believe, nothing more important to the 
     health of society than men undertaking the role of father. 
     ``There is very little you can do to sever the ties between 
     women and their children,'' Mr. Blankenhorn notes. ``Crack 
     cocaine can do it, but that's about it. Otherwise, the 
     emotional ties are firm.''
       But men are different. Men can detach themselves with their 
     children, and our experience of the past 30 years has shown 
     just how easily they can let go (and just how fragile are the 
     foundations of civilization). Without the strong societal 
     message that to be a good man means shouldering the 
     responsibilities for your wife and children, many men are 
     content to abandon their families.
       And when they do, the results for children are 
     catastrophic. Sixty percent of rapists, 72 percent of 
     adolescent murderers and 70 percent of long-term prison 
     inmates grew up in fatherless homes. Forty percent of 
     American children now live in families without their 
     biological fathers. Half of these have never been in their 
     father's home.
       But it isn't just at the pathological extremes that father 
     absence works its mischief. Every child needs a father. A boy 
     needs a father to show him what it means to be a man. He 
     learns how to treat women by watching the way his father 
     treats his mother. Girls derive ambition. self-confidence and 
     a general attitude toward men from their relationship with 
     Dad.
       This is not to slight mothers. Mothers are crucial, too. 
     But mothers are not abandoning their children. As Mr. 
     Blankenhorn notes, it is not necessary for society to urge 
     mothers to undertake their responsibilities.
       But the data are quite clear that mothers alone have a 
     tough time socializing their children, particularly their 
     sons. And they have a tough time making ends meet. Seventy-
     five percent of children in single-parent families experience 
     poverty before the age of 11.
       For 30 years, our culture has been at war with fatherhood. 
     It was claimed that fathers were stifling, emotionally 
     remote, overly strict and, ultimately, superfluous. Feminists 
     who see today's challenge as getting fathers to pay child 
     support are missing the point. The great challenge is to 
     return men to the business of being fathers.

  Mono Charen is exactly 100 percent right in everything she says in 
this column.
  Unless and until we heed her words, we can pass crime bills until we 
are blue in the face, and it will do absolutely no good whatsoever.

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